Web winding machines for creating rolls of web material include a web rolling or winding station and a delivery station to which the finished or wound rolls are delivered. At the winding station, these apparatus typically have winding or bearing rollers. The web core on which the web is to be wound is seated on the bearing rollers, the web is attached or applied to the core and the core is rotated by the bearing rollers which winds the web onto the core. In a typical arrangement, the cores for the webs comprise cardboard tubes. In some arrangements, a single quite wide web is longitudinally cut prior to its being wound on the cores, and a plurality of cores are provided corresponding in number and width to the individual webs that are being simultaneously wound. All of the cores are supported on a roll rod, which holds them in a single row. All of the cores sit upon the rotating bearing rollers.
After the single roll or the group of rolls sitting on the bearing rollers have been wound to the desired diameter, cutting means operate to transversely cut off the continuous web or webs so that the completed roll or rolls can be removed and so as to provide a starting end for each web to be wound on the next roll. Then the guiding roll rod inside all of the cores of the wound rolls is withdrawn. In the typical installation, the now finished wound rolls are rolled, more or less freely, from the rolling station to a delivery station at which they are removed from the apparatus. After this, a roll rod loaded with new web cores is emplaced on the bearing rollers and the web winding begins again.
The above described known apparatus do not precisely control the finished rolls during their trip from the rolling station to the delivery station. There is a risk of accident. There is a risk that the rolls will not be delivered in perfect alignment or in readily packageable form. In addition, the roll removal and changing stage involves a relatively long interruption of the roll-winding process, which is quite undesireable.